Corona Devotionals

While at the zoo the other day, we were able to catch a close-up glimpse of a beautiful bald eagle. Bold and strong and majestic and fearsome, it stood only about ten feet from us. That gave me the close range view of his strong body, sharp beak, and feathers. Those feathers : there seemed to be just enough and in all the right places. I was not aware of an eagle's perfect alignment and patterning of feathers before. And I don't mean color pattern...I mean, every feather seemed to be in perfect position: layered and arranged in precise symmetry and placement. One row on top of the next, perfectly placed and fitted to make flight possible, effective, and intentional. Sometimes we can forget the intimate, specific, absolutely-precise detail that our Creator has gone-to in order to create an eagle as an eagle. And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” (21) So God created the great creatures of t...

Some of us are in a state of lack today, and it's not just today.  A moment  of lack, is a moment:  ...a difficult day, or a hard few hours.  It is short-term.   But going without  for a continued-time...causes suffering and poverty  within us. " Poverty " often   makes us think of money/provision/resources: and some of us are  hurting finan cially today.  We are praying for provision...and working for it too, but the out-going is still exceeding the in-coming.   Jesus speaks to us through the Bible today:  “I know about your suffering and your poverty—but you are rich!" (Revelation 2:9). “Write this letter to the angel of the church in Smyrna. This is the message from the one who is the First and the Last, who was dead but is now alive: ( 9)  “I know about your suffering and your poverty—but you are rich!    ~Revelation 2:8-9 ~~~ Maybe our poverty  is in spirit.  The suffering  has take...

No w it came to pass in those days that He went out to the mountain to pray, and continued all night in  prayer to God.   ~Luke 6:12     Is today a day for us to withdraw  to a lonely (quiet/isolated/alone) place to pray ?   Jesus did.   Shouldn't we (as His followers) do that sometimes too?   Is it time? ~~~ Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed (Luke 5:16).  It m ay be a  mountain , it may be a cabin, it may be a retreat, or it may be a quiet spot in our own home.  Perhaps circumstances require that  "withdrawing"  means only in our mind, because the situation does not allow for  actual  withdrawal to  a  lonely place. ...However and whatever we need to do to accomplish it today:  withdraw  and pray  today. ~~~ Did we know that Jesus would step away to pray? If (even He) did, then we should too. Yet the news about him spread all the more, so th...

I got a big, juicy hug in the mail yesterday. Someone (my dad!) sent me sunshine.   Love came in a box: sealed with a smile, and dripping with delight. Navel oranges and ruby red grapefruits might not sound like a typical love-letter to you , but they sure are to me .   Is it possible to symbolically declare our love from over twelve-hundred miles away?   Absolutely(!), I decided as citrus juice ran down to my elbows. Is it possible to send-love, share-love, and even manifest-love through kind actions?   You bet your bottom orange it is!   Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.   Everyone who loves has been born   of God and knows God.   Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.   ~I John 4:7-8 Something moves us to do good things.   Something prompts us to propel light instead of darkness. The impetus is God in us, and it is love and the love of God that moves us to love ot...

Here is the church.  Here is the steeple.  Open the doors, and there's all the people!  Did you learn this hand poem when you were small?  There is truth to it.  At the heart of God's church are God's people.  That's good news and bad news...and we all have testimonies and trials to prove it.   Churches are made up of people, and we are imperfect.   If we know and love the Lord, then we are trying to live for Him.  And there are some things that we are no doubt doing well in that journey.   But we are human, and thus,  we are sinful , and so there are also some things that we could improve upon within our faith walk.  Churches are made of people, and in the last book of the Bible, ( Revelation ), Jesus writes letters to seven churches. These were actual churches in His day, and they were made up of people. Then and now (just as the children's song shows-and-tells)-- churches are made up of people. Open each (of ...

I like words.   I just do.   And some words are just… fun , like the word “paradox”.   It is fun to pronounce, and it is even more fun to try and define.    par·a·dox ( noun):  a seemingly absurd   or self-contradictory statement or proposition   that when investigated or explained may prove to be well founded or true ( Oxford Langua ges Dictionary )  We know a paradox when we hear it or see it, don't we?   For instance, can we love someone so deeply  that we would want to punish them?   Sounds cruel. Or does it?   Perhaps it's a paradox, because i t seems contradictory , doesn't it?  ...Loving so much that we would punish ?   But then I picture a small child about to touch a hot stove.  Grabbing them out of harm's way would be the first order of business, but teaching and disciplining ("punishing") in order to correct and instruct them  not to go near  a hot stove in the futur...